Programme specialist - regional

Background

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is the UN organization that contributes to peace and development through volunteerism worldwide. Volunteerism is a powerful means of engaging people in tackling development challenges, and it can transform the pace and nature of development. Volunteerism benefits both society at large and the individual volunteer by strengthening trust, solidarity and reciprocity among citizens, and by purposefully creating opportunities for participation. UNV contributes to peace and development by advocating for recognition of volunteers, working with partners to integrate volunteerism into development programming, and mobilizing an increasing number and diversity of volunteers, including experienced UN volunteers, throughout the world. UNV embraces volunteerism as universal and inclusive, and recognizes volunteerism in its diversity as well as the values that sustain it: free will, commitment, engagement and solidarity.

UNV engaged 7,303 UN volunteers in 2011, on a total of 7,708 assignments. With an average age of 38 years and the requisite professional skills and qualifications of some 5 to 10 years relevant experience, UN volunteers served in 132 countries in 2011 and came themselves from 162. The majority – 81 per cent – come from developing countries themselves. One third of UN volunteers served in their own countries, with the others carrying out international assignments. The financial equivalent of programme activities exceeds US$235 million annually.

Organizational setting

The UNV Peace and Development Divisions oversee and implement UNV’s programme strategy. They advocate for the integration of volunteerism in peace and development at global, regional and national levels, targeting specific focus areas in which the role of volunteerism adds significant value.They mobilize volunteers to support the peace and development agenda of UNV partners, including national volunteerism interventions as well as proactive mobilization of UNV and other volunteers. They ensure quality volunteer management of UN volunteers.They work to promote advocacy for volunteerism, and support the documentation of the contribution of volunteerism to peace and development and will target national development fora, governments and parliaments with a view to influencing national policies, legislation, statutory frameworks and budget in order to promote volunteerism for peace and development.Both Divisions focus on both “Development” and “Peace” issues and areas. However, the Development Division oversees the “predominantly development” countries, and the Peace Division oversees the “predominantly peace countries.The Development Division supports UNV Programme activities in priority and strategic countries, which are predominantly in development phase, and more specifically in the following focus areas:

• Strengthening local governance
• Primary health care and HIV/AIDs
• Non-formal education
• Disaster risk reduction
• Early recovery including livelihoods
• Local conflict resolution/reconciliation/human rights
• Community-based natural resource management and sustainable biodiversity conservation
• Community-based adaptation to climate change
• Food security through sustainable livelihoods

Duties and responsibilities

Reporting to the Chief, Development Division, and based in Egypt UNDP Country Office, the Programme Specialist (Regional) will facilitate and consolidate findings from the national consultations and the regional workshop leading to the development of a fully-fledged project document, resource mobilization and creating synergies with development partners.

Summary of key functions

• Ensuring the strategic direction of UNV programme
• Management of the CO programme and supervision of the Programme team
• Strategic partnerships and support to resource mobilization
• Provision of top quality policy advice services to the Government and facilitation of knowledge building and management

Programme development

• Research, review and analyze background documents, national and regional strategies including those of the UN related to youth development, youth volunteering and volunteerism in the Arab region.
• Undertake participatory consultation meetings and deploy other modern participatory networking tools and social media to address diverse stakeholders.
• Encourage buy in of diverse stakeholders and create enabling environment for a participatory and youth-led implementation of the regional programme.
• Provide substantive inputs and advice on youth issues drawing from research, projects and studies conducted in the pilot countries as well as own networks and knowledge of youth issues specific to the region.
• Ensure successful preparation, implementation and documentation of a participatory regional workshop to discuss and validate the findings of national consultations and to identify suitable regional and national implementing partners.
• Consolidate desk reviews and consultation data and draw on this to develop a fully-fledged project document using standard UNDP project document format and RBM tools.
• Develop a sound resource mobilization strategy identifying potential donors, their areas of interest and promote the programme for resource mobilization.

Programme management

• Plan, initiate, facilitate and manage programme activities and measure performance and report on programme results and outcomes to the Reference Team and Project Board.
• Ensure the establishment of the office at the outset of the programme operations.
• Manage the recruitment of the programme team and local consultants, as well as identifying short-term international and local experts as necessary.
• Coordinate and supervise the activities of the programme staff, UN volunteers, experts and consultants.
• Prepare programme work plans, progress reports and final reports.
• Liaise with the country offices, donors and all other partners on all matters concerning the implementation of the programme and donor reporting.
• Organise donor coordination and programme review meetings. Prepare background documents, briefs, issues papers, and progress reports for the Project Board meetings and for donor reporting.
• Follow-up on the implementation of reference team and project board decisions and recommendations.
• Manage process for the selection of suppliers, contractors and partners.
• Supervise procurement of goods and services including preparation of equipment specifications, Terms of Reference (TORs) and
• Request for Proposals (RFPs) according to approved UNDP procedures.
• Conduct field visits to supervise, coordinate, encourage and monitor field-level activities of the programme.
• Promote knowledge sharing behavior among the project team and the different country initiatives and efficiently use options available to share knowledge like the UNV Portal and Teamwork spaces etc.
• Organise end of programme evaluation in close coordination with UNDP Country Office.
• Other related duties that may be assigned.

Competencies

Building strategic partnerships

• Effectively networks with partners seizing opportunities to build strategic alliances relevant to UNV’s mandate and strategic agenda
• Sensitizes UN Partners, donors and other international organizations to the UNV’s strategic agenda, identifying areas for joint efforts
• Develops positive ties with civil society to build/strengthen UNV’s mandate
• Identifies needs and interventions for capacity building of counterparts, clients and potential partners
• Displays initiative, sets challenging outputs for him/herself and willingly accepts new work assignments
• Takes responsibility for achieving agreed outputs within set deadlines and strives until successful outputs are achieved
• Promotes UNV’s agenda in inter-agency meetings

Promoting organizational learning and knowledge sharing

• Makes the case for innovative ideas documenting successes and building them into the design of new approaches
• Identifies new approaches and strategies that promote the use of tools and mechanisms
• Develops and/or participates in the development of tools and mechanisms, including identifying new approaches to promote individual and organizational learning and knowledge sharing using formal and informal methodologies

Job knowledge/technical expertise

• Understands more advanced aspects of primary area of specialization as well as the fundamental concepts of related disciplines
• Serves as internal consultant in the area of expertise and shares knowledge with staff
• Continues to seeks new and improved methods and systems for accomplishing the work of the unit
• Keeps abreast of new developments in area of professional discipline and job knowledge and seeks to develop him/herself professionally
• Demonstrates comprehensive knowledge of information technology and applies it in work assignments
• Demonstrates comprehensive understanding and knowledge of the current guidelines and project management tools and utilizes these regularly in work assignments

Promoting organizational change and development

• Develops communications and programmes to assist business units in their adaptation to changing environment
• Provides counseling and coaching to colleagues who are dealing with change
• Assists in the development of policies, communications, and change strategies
• Performs appropriate work analysis and assists in redesign to establish clear standards for implementation

Design and implementation of management systems

• Carries out research into existing systems to identify best practice and make recommendations to management on applicability to UNV
• Refine and enhances existing systems by leading and coordinating systems development
• Identifies and recommends remedial measures to address problems in systems design or implementation
• Conducts system assessment to improve development of systems design and operation

Client orientation

• Anticipates client needs
• Works towards creating an enabling environment for a smooth relationship between the clients and service provider
• Demonstrates understanding of client’s perspective
• Keeps the client informed of problems or delays in the provision of services
• Uses discretion and flexibility in interpreting rules in order to meet client needs and achieve organizational goals more effectively
• Solicits feedback on service provision and quality

Promoting accountability and results-based management

• Provides inputs to the development of organizational standards for accountability and results-based management
• Develops and applies tools and techniques in assessing the application of programme and/or administer the policies and procedures
• Undertakes ad hoc analysis of issues emanating from policy application reviews

Core competencies

• Demonstrating/safeguarding ethics and integrity
• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment
• Self-development, initiative-taking
• Acting as a team player and facilitating team work
• Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively
• Creating synergies through self-control
• Managing conflict
• Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others
• Informed and transparent decision making

Required skills and experience

Education

Master’s Degree or advanced degree in Development Studies, Economics, and international Development, Political and Social Sciences or any related field.

Experience

• At least 7 years progressively responsible experience in the development sector.
• Previous direct working experience with youth, youth development and participatory processes and/or the voluntary sector within the Middle East context.
• Familiarity with UN project management and project document formats would be a distinct advantage.
• Demonstrated knowledge and understanding of participatory approaches, tools and methodologies including Result Based          
• Management (RBM) related to planning, executing and monitoring the implementation of technical assistance projects
• Fully proficient computer skills and use of relevant software and other applications, e.g. word processing, PowerPoint or equivalent, internal databases, Internet and modern social media tools.
• Proven experience establishing and strengthening inter-agency and cross sectorial collaborative mechanisms with the ability to address multi-level stakeholders.

Language requirements

• Fluency in English and ability to work in Arabic.
• Knowledge of French will be an asset.